So I’m Dressing My Husband up as “Thranduil”…

About two weeks ago, I got it in my head that I’d like to dress my husband up as an elf king.

We were attending the premiere of Thor 2 with a bunch of friends and acquaintances from the local geek community, most of them were in costume. We were not, as we didn’t really have anything “Thor-suitable”. With the premiere of The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug being the next thing on our group movie premiere attending calendar… our next costuming inspiration was easy.

Because I like a challenge, I decided he’d have to be an elf. Not just any elf, but Thranduil, as he had the craziest, most intricate costume… and hey, he’s kinda hot. Sounded like a great idea – I love a challenge!

I got to work almost immediately, looking up details photos and picking out the perfect fabric:

First up, I decided to tackle one of the smaller, easier items from the costume: the jewelry! Thranduil has 4 rings and a brooch, which I fashioned out of Sculpey clay. I made the “stones” first, used a flat edge to give them some facets, and baked them.

For the brooch, I traced the stone onto some parchment, and drew the basic layout for the “legs” right onto the parchment paper. I rolled some silver coloured Sculpey into long ropes, and laid them in place. Then I wrapped a small amount of silver Sculpey around the back of the stone to be the “setting”, and pressed it into place over the “legs”. Baked it again, let it cool before painting the “stone” with a dark metallic nail polish and let that dry before using a silver leaf pen all over the rest of the brooch. Let that dry, glued a pin backing on it.

The finished jewelery. Porter is under strict orders to NOT do any work on the car/anything else that’ll bang up his hands again before the movie premiere!

Thrilled with how the jewelery turned out, I was ready to get started on drafting and cutting my custom coat. (I may have had some “liquid encouragement”, too!). This is easily the most obnoxious cosplay outfit I’ve ever made, clocking in at over 170 pieces of fabric in the coat alone! It was definitely an exercise in logistics:

Each of the 80 long strips of coat are sewn together with piping in between the seams. Very elegant, but very tedious and PRECISE work:

It took some time and patience, but everything came together perfectly! Everything lined up, and the coat fit perfectly.

Once fitted, I had to go back and top stitch all of the piping! Lots of fussy work, but it made everything look even more tailored:

With the coat finished, it was time to turn to the other daunting task – custom boots. There was VERY little in the way of clear photos of the source material out there, and I’d never made boots like this before… so we winged it.

We used a pair of chunky platform heels as the base for the boot, to give Porter a few more inches of height. Figured I’d make him work for his costume, a little: he was tasked with gluing the custom boots down to the new sole:

The crown was fashioned from heavy floral wire and more Sculpey clay, baked, and then accented with some darker brown paint and gold leafing pen, as well as some silk floral leaves:

Friday night, his wig arrived… so we did our first makeup/hair trial. I had never dealt with elf ear tips before… and I also had to make him pale and give him big, dark eyebrows (he has incredibly sparse, very pale blond brows!). We were pleasantly surprised with how well the transformation went… I am NOT very good with makeup, in general. Will definitely need to practice the brows, but otherwise…awesome!

Want to see the final costume? Click here to see photos from the outdoor photo shoot we did yesterday!

Editing to add:

Yes, I do take custom commissions for Thranduil costumes, contact me for details.

Due to the fragile nature of the polymer clay jewelry I made for this, we’re now experimenting with a new technique. I’ll update here with the results of that, when we have them!

Also, I’m in the process of redoing the crown. Again, the polymer clay is more fragile than I would like. Will update when I’m done!

Marie Porter

Marie is an award winning cake artist based in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Known as much for her delicious and diverse flavor menu as for her sugar artistry, Marie’s work has graced magazines and blogs around the world. Having baked and designed for brides, celebrities, and even Klingons, Marie was proud to share her wealth of baking knowledge in her two cookbooks: “The Spirited Baker” and “Evil Cake Overlord”. Marie has also authored a book about her experiences surrounding the 2011 Minneapolis tornado: “Twisted: A Minneapolis Tornado Memoir”

I have a picture of it at the top of the post. It was a type of silver satin,, but with a slight amount of texture.

I bought it at a local warehouse, that doesn’t really label fabrics for content.. so I don’t have a ton of info about it. It had a bit of body/stiffness, but just enough to hold a nice drape. Mid tone silver with some black fibres underneath. Really nice.

Hi!
This cosplay is really great!
I want to make a Thranduil cosplay,too and i am looking for a proper pattern to base it on.
Can you give me any advice or would you sell the pattern you have used ?
Thanks in advance 🙂

Hey I’m cosplaying Thranduil in just over a month and am just wondering how much you’d charge for a coat because this is the most perfect one I’ve found so far and I have been looking for a long time but do not have your skill to create one myself. This is truly stunning!

Hi!! I’m planning a Thranduil cosplay and I was looking for inspirations and I reeeeaally love the way yours turned out. I would like to know if there are any chances of you giving the pattern that you used for Thrandy’s clothing. Xoxo

Unfortunately, no. Pattern making takes a ton of time, and for this costume, produces a ton of pieces and a complicated set of instructions. I take orders for custom coats, but it’s just not worth my while to do pattern orders only.

Hey! I’m planning on doing a simplified version of a Thranduil cosplay for a con coming up in May. It would be a lot shorter, and would just go about to the knees. Do you do commissions? I’d be willing to pay for you to make me one before May.
Thank you!